"Yes, dear."
I'll be plain, she thought, but I'll wear well. A background always wears well. Time can't hurt it much, because there's nothing there to hurt.
There's one thing I overlooked, though. How old will we look? The Doctor is rather insensitive about human faces, and he might age us a bit. He mustn't do that. It'll be all right if he wants to make us a little younger, but not older. I'll have to warn him.
She warned him, and again he seemed rather amused at her.
"All right," he said, "you will appear slightly younger. Not too much so, however, for from my reading I judge it best for a human face to show not too great a discrepancy from the physiological age."
She breathed a sigh of relief. It was settled now, all settled. Everything would be as before—perhaps just a little better. She and Fred could go back to their married life with the knowledge that they would be as happy as ever. Nothing exuberant, of course, but as happy as their own peculiar natures permitted. As happy as a plain and worried wife and a handsome husband could ever be.
Now that this had been decided, the days passed slowly. Her arms and legs grew, and her eyes too. She could feel the beginnings of fingers and toes, and on the sensitive optic nerve the flashes of light came with greater and greater frequency. There were slight pains from time to time, but they were pains she welcomed. They were the pains of growth, of return to normalcy.
And then came the day when the Doctor said, "You have recovered. In another day, as you measure time, I shall remove your bandages."
Tears welled up in her new eyes. "Doctor, I don't know how to thank you."